228 rebels yield since Jan­uary 2017

THE Philip­pine Army’s 10th In­fantry Di­vi­sion (ID) has recorded a to­tal of 228 rebels who sur­ren­dered to au­thor­i­ties this year from Jan­uary to De­cem­ber 6 and have availed of the Com­pre­hen­sive Lo­cal In­te­gra­tion Pro­gram (Clip) of the gov­ern­ment.

Lamosao said the pro­nounce­ment of Pres­i­dent Ro­drigo R. Duterte declar­ing the com­mu­nist group as ter­ror­ists would have a huge im­pact and would cre­ate a set­back on the side of the rebels, thus, he urged them to sur­ren­der.

“Malak­ing im­pact itong pag-de­clare ng CPP-NPA as ter­ror­ist so for those who wanted to sur­ren­der, sur­ren­der now be­cause they al­ready know the im­pli­ca­tion,” Lamosao said, ad­ding that the huge num­ber of rebel re­turnees was also triggered by the hard­ship of for­mer rebels in the hin­ter­lands and the dis­in­te­grat­ing sys­tem.

“They were only forced to join and there are a lot of them who wanted to come down even be­fore the dec­la­ra­tion,” Lamosao added.

Ear­lier, another mem­ber of the New Peo­ple’s Army (NPA) vol­un­tar­ily sur­ren­dered with his M14 ri­fle and

an AK-47 ri­fle to the 60th In­fantry Bat­tal­ion on Sun­day.

He was iden­ti­fied as Alias Toni, 28, a res­i­dent of New Corella, Davao del Norte.

Toni will be en­rolled to the Clip where he can re­ceive im­me­di­ate cash and liveli­hood as­sis­tance. He will also re­ceive ad­di­tional re­mu­ner­a­tion for the firearms that he sur­ren­dered.